


The Natural Look

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7495557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux invites Ren to his quarters for an intriguing reason. (Not sex. Initially.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Natural Look

**Author's Note:**

> This marks my first time writing Millicent the cat. Give me another seven months and I might embrace "Armitage."

Kylo Ren has never been inside General Hux's quarters. He hasn't been invited, and he can't say he's consumed by a burning desire to see them. Ren's interest is piqued, however, when one evening, he receives an urgent comm on the private channel. _Come to my room, now._ Then, a moment later, _Please_ , as if Hux has belatedly remembered Ren is not an underling to be ordered about. 

Ordinarily, Ren would ignore any command of Hux's, purely to annoy. This time, his curiosity gets the better of him. What could possibly have led to a request like this? Ren has to know. He waits five minutes, timing it on the chronometer, lest Hux think Ren is at his beck and call. Then, he makes the short journey down the corridor to Hux's room. 

When Ren pushes the buzzer, the door slides open immediately. _Intriguing_ , Ren thinks, and steps inside. The rooms are much like his own. Neat, organized, spartan. “Hello?” he calls.

“I'm here,” Hux replies, from the direction of the refresher. As in Ren's room, this lies beyond the sleeping quarters. Ren follows the voice, entering Hux's bedroom. There, he stops. Atop the impeccably made bed sits an orange cat with a buzzing electronic toy in its paws. 

“What is that?” 

“What?” Hux sounds distracted. 

“The animal.”

“It's a cat.”

“I know it's a cat. Why would Snoke permit you to have it?” Would he permit Ren a pet? Ren doesn't particularly want one. He doesn't care for animals, but it is not fair that Hux be given privileges Ren himself does not possess. They are meant to be equals. Their mutual humiliation at Starkiller base has eased their rivalry, a little, but not to the point where Ren is willing to grant Hux special dispensation of any kind. 

“He doesn't care. Would you come here?” 

Regarding the cat with narrowed eyes, Ren walks over to the 'fresher. Immediately, all thoughts of cats and justice fly from his mind. 

Hux is standing in his underwear: a black undershirt and black briefs. Skin Ren has never seen before is on display, all of it pale and much of it dusted with light freckles. Ren is pleased, not for the first time, that he has his mask in place. He looks freely, knowing Hux will not see him staring. He takes his time, letting his eyes wander up Hux's slender body. Then he reaches Hux's face. 

A line of thick, sparkling gold paint runs crookedly from Hux's lower eyelid to his chin. Another line, just as off-centre, ventures halfway down the other cheek, then stops with a vicious squiggle, as if someone suffered a fit of frustration. There is desperation in Hux's eyes and a stick of body paint in his hand. Hux scowls. The scowl grows deeper when Ren laughs. 

“What are you doing?” Ren asks. He can't wait to hear the explanation.

“It's not for my own enjoyment,” Hux snaps. “It's this.” He gestures angrily at a small holoprojection, rotating on the counter beside him. The image is of a man in a short, skirt-like garment, his face and body decorated in elaborate gold makeup. He has red hair, like Hux, cut in a similar style. “D'ahmet Rash'an. A god to the citizens of Beshera Prime. There's a prophecy that he will return one day, at which point the Besherans will immediately award him the entirety of their treasury. Which is several standard tons of precious metals, jewels and valuable spices.” 

“And you're going to impersonate this god?” Ren hasn't heard of this plan. “Why not just take what you want?” 

“The treasury is hidden. Very few of the citizens know the location.” 

“You could torture someone who does.”

“That takes time. We need all the funds we can get, now,” Hux says. “And I need to get back into Snoke's good books.” 

“Yes.” It's true. They both do. “But why ask me?”

“I thought, with your...” Hux waves vaguely at his own eyes. 

Ren draws himself up. “I don't wear makeup.” Not on a daily basis, at any rate. “Get someone else to help you.”

Hux barks a humourless laugh. “Who, exactly? Phasma? Mitaka? I can't ask this of a subordinate.”

But he can, apparently, ask it of Ren. Ren wants to refuse, to storm out in anger, but the idea of seeing the uptight General decked out like a particularly gaudy pleasure slave is too good to pass up. “All right.”

Hux starts, as if he didn't truly expect Ren to agree. “Wash that mess off your face first,” Ren says. 

When Hux's face is clean and pink from scrubbing, Ren takes off his gloves and, reluctantly, his mask. He can't see well enough with it on. “Stay still,” he orders. Looking at the holoprojection for reference, Ren draws a thick, straight line across Hux's cheek.

The paint is rich and creamy. It practically glows against Hux's pale skin. Ren draws an identical line on the other cheek, then places three large dots on Hux's forehead, above his eyebrows. Ren leans close to the projection, frowning in concentration. The god appears to have gold around his eyes, although it's hard to tell. Better too much than too little, Ren supposes. It's his general philosophy of life. 

“Eyes up.” 

“What?”

“Look up.” Ren moves in close. The makeup stick is too broad to make an effective eyeliner, but Ren uses it to colour Hux's lower eyelids. “Close your eyes.” 

Hux swallows, then shifts. “Close them,” Ren repeats. It's only then that he realizes how close he is to Hux. So close, their noses are practically touching. So close, Ren can see just how smooth Hux's skin really is. Hux shifts in place, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. 

“Don't do that,” Ren says, because he knows Hux will obey him.

“Sorry.” Hux stops. 

There was a time when Ren desired more from Hux than simply to die and leave Ren in sole command. Soon after they met, Ren approached him. 

“We both have needs, General,” he said, “that, given our elevated positions, are difficult to slake with others.” Hux didn't reply. At first, Ren thought his offer had been unclear to a man of such diminished intelligence, but then Hux stepped forward, closing the gap between them. He took Ren's robes in his hands, pulling the two of them almost as close as they were now, and said, in his crisp, devastating post-Imperial accent,“There is nothing, I repeat _nothing_ , you will _ever_ be able to offer me, Lord Ren. And I'd rather fuck the trash compactor.” 

_Look who needs me now_ , Ren thinks, smugly. He takes an unnecessarily long time with Hux's upper eyelids, forcing Hux to stand with his eyes shut because he can. 

Spirals are next, on each of Hux's temples. With a steady hand, Ren makes them as even as possible. The intricate images along the god's jawline are challenging, and it takes Ren some time to draw the interlocking pattern with anything resembling accuracy. The shapes extend down Hux's neck to his collarbone, and, for a moment, Ren is uncomfortably reminded of his own disfiguring scar. With his oversized ears and nose and blemished face, Ren has never been handsome in the way Hux is handsome, but the scavenger's scar brings him into the realm of the grotesque. One more reason to be glad of his mask. Ren joins the pattern over Hux's clavicle, finishing it with the proscribed flourish in the soft spot at the base of Hux's throat. He hands the stick of paint back to Hux.

“What? You're done?” Hux points at the projection. “He's got it all over his body and legs.”

“I assumed you would manage that yourself.”

A blush rises on Hux's face, faint pink beneath the gold. “I can't. I'm not artistic like you.” 

“Artistic?” It's not something Ren has been called before. “Is that a compliment?”

“Just finish the job, all right?” 

Ren hesitates. It could be dangerous. It might stir up thoughts better left dormant, at least on Ren's part. But, despite what many think of him, he has self-control, and he can manage himself. “Get your top off, then,” Ren says, and watches Hux pull off the undershirt. 

The designs on the god's body are less elaborate, but more numerous than those on his face. Ren paints dots like constellations across Hux's chest, along his prominent ribcage, on the shoulder blades that stand out sharply from his back, like the roots of wings. 

“How are you planning to communicate?” Ren asks, dropping another golden dot onto Hux's skin.

“D'ahmet Rash'an doesn't lower himself to verbal speech. He has an intricate system of hand signs. I've spent three weeks learning them.”

“Your dedication is admirable.” 

Hux huffs, as if Ren is being sarcastic, but it's true. Ren has always admired Hux's ability to stay focused on even the most mundane of tasks for an excruciating length of time. It's a skill that, even with all of his training and meditation, Ren struggles to master. 

This, however, isn't boring at all. When he nears the waistband of Hux's briefs, Hux shifts. Ren draws a thick line, as indicated, just above where the god's skirt lies. “Are you going to wear something like that?” He points to the image.

“I guess I'll have to. Unless I can convince them their god's growing modest in his old age.” 

“How old?”

“He's said to be more than eight thousand years.”

“I meant you.” Ren didn't, but he realizes now he doesn't know Hux's age. He couldn't even hazard a guess. 

“Oh.” Hux blinks, his golden eyelids catching the overhead light. “Thirty-four. You?”

“Thirty.” 

“That's surprising.”

“Why?”

“From the way you act, I'd have guessed much younger. Perhaps sixteen.” 

“Do I look like a sixteen year old?” 

Hux snorts. “If sixteen year olds looked like you, I'd have had a much more fulfilling adolescence.” That sounds like a compliment. If so, it's the second one Hux has paid him today. 

Ren kneels down to work on Hux's legs. Hux fidgets. Ren steadies him with a hand on his hip. “Don't ruin my work.” Carefully, Ren copies the scrolls and curlicues. As he's drawing a particularly detailled curve, reminiscent of a cresting wave, high on Hux's inner thigh, Hux twitches inside his briefs. 

Ren stops. He's not as socially inept as people think. He should make a joke, he knows, both to embarrass Hux and to put him at ease. _Why General, I never knew you cared._ Something like that, something light that will prompt Hux to make a scathing reply and let them both ignore what is doubtlessly a purely physical reaction. Ren opens his mouth, but before he can speak, the cat trots into the room. 

“Millicent!” Hux's voice is loud and over-enthusiastic. “What do you have there? What's that?”

The cat drops the toy at Hux's feet and bestows a disinterested look on Ren. The toy emits a high-pitched squeal, and the cat stalks out again. 

“Millicent?” Ren says. “That's its name? That's dumb.”

“What would you have named her?”

“I don't know. Killer?” 

Hux laughs. “I sincerely hope you never had a pet as a child.” 

“I didn't. My father's best friend was a Wookie and he shed enough.” His mother's exact words. This is straying dangerously close to reminiscing, and Ren doesn't reminisce. Ever. He picks up his pace, working quickly on Hux's calves and the tops of his feet. The god has one large, staring eye on each foot, which perturbs Ren a little. _What are they going to see_ , he thinks, _except up the skirt?_

“Give me your hand,” Ren snaps. The twitch in Hux's shorts has become a noticeable bulge, but he's determined not to notice it. He's walking a fine line, balancing on the edge between rationality and something that will likely lead to an explosion of emotion—what Hux would so inelegantly term a “tantrum”—and Ren does not want to give into that. He's a man of control, he reminds himself, and he jerks Hux's hand toward him roughly. 

D'ahmet Rash'an's palms are bare, but the backs of his hands are decorated with long, curving lines from his wrists to the ends of his fingers. Ren makes it through three fingers of Hux's left hand before he looks up. Hux is looking down, into Ren's eyes. His expression is so blank, it can only be deliberate. Out of nowhere, like a vision, a single word appears in Ren's mind: _fealty._

Ren can't exactly define what it means to him. It feels different to loyalty, which is what he has sworn to the knights of Ren, and to devotion, which he has sworn to Snoke. It's even different to solidarity, which Ren had never thought to feel for anyone, until he and Hux had to face Snoke together, both failures, after Starkiller's destruction. This emotion is an amalgamation of the three, and is so strong Ren is driven to express it somehow. 

On impulse, Ren presses the back of Hux's fingers to his mouth, as if he's kissing an imaginary ring. For a second, the universe stops. It's only a second. Ren doesn't have time to curse or applaud himself for his actions. In the blink of an eye, Hux drops to his knees like he's been shot, his hands in Ren's hair and his open mouth desperate against Ren's. 

Hux kisses like a starving man would eat, without care for decorum or niceties. It's so different to what Ren would have expected that he would laugh, were he not so thoroughly enthralled by it. He kisses back, trying to keep up, his tongue against Hux's and his hands roaming the body he just spent so much time adorning. Hux goes down onto his back, dragging Ren on top of him. Ren fumbles with Hux's briefs, eager to shove them off, or at least out of the way. He's nearly there when he hears soft footfalls followed by a, “Meow?” 

He raises his head. The cat stands in the doorway, watching. 

“Hux.” Ren doesn't need to say more. Without looking, Hux gropes around for the toy. He tosses it blindly into the bedroom. For a moment, it seems as if the cat is not going to be distracted, but at last it saunters away, and Ren uses the Force to slam the door behind it. 

Hux's body is a thing of wonder. Ren has experienced sex before, with nameless beings of various ages and genders provided by Snoke as occasional “rewards” and presumably disposed of afterward. It doesn't compare to this. This makes Ren's heart hammer and his cock leak. It makes him come quickly—too quickly—with tears in his eyes, streaking spurts of white into Hux's hand and over Hux's body, adding his own, very personal, touch to the smeared gold masterpiece before him. It even makes Ren do something he has never done before, what he's always considered beneath a man of his station: he slides down and takes Hux's cock into his mouth.

It's difficult, at first, to get it into a comfortable position. What appeared to be a perfectly normal sized cock suddenly seems to grow exponentially, stretching Ren's mouth and reaching further down his throat than he anticipated. Hux grunts, then moans, and that, Ren finds, is all the encouragement he needs. He swirls his tongue around. He bobs up and down. He does everything he himself appreciates. When Hux pushes at his shoulder and says, “Ren,” in a warning tone, he doesn't plan on moving, but at the last moment, he loses his nerve. Ren shifts back, just a little, and lets Hux paint his face in the most intimate way possible. 

When he opens his eyes, Hux lets out a string of inventive curses and yanks Ren up to him. Ren shivers when Hux begins to lick him like his stupid little cat, his tongue ranging over Ren's nose and cheeks and scar. When Hux presses their mouths together again, Ren tastes himself, and Hux, and the combination is nearly enough to get Ren hard again. 

“It's a stupid idea,” Hux says, quietly, after a moment's silence. They lie twined together on the 'fresher floor, both breathing hard. 

Ren looks up. “Yes.” Ren knows what he's talking about. It's not the sex. It's not even the ridiculously complicated plan to con the Besherans out of their treasury, when Ren could go down and take it from them in a moment. Something more has happened here, something Ren doesn't want to articulate even in his own mind. 

“If we're not careful,” Hux says, holding Ren's gaze, “I might develop a taste for it.”

“We both might.” It feels like a promise. Ren doesn't quite know what he's just vowed, or where it might lead them, but the path suddenly feels inevitable, as if they were bound to it from the moment they first laid eyes on each other. 

A scratching at the door and a forlorn, “Meow?” break the spell. 

Hux stands up. “I'm taking a shower,” he declares, ignoring the cat.

“You expect me to redo all that makeup?”

Hux looks at him. “No. Perhaps you're right, perhaps it makes more sense to take the treasury by force. I trust you can accomplish the task.” 

“Yes.” Ren grins at the thought of it. “It will be easy.” He doesn't know the details, but he's sure of it. 

“Good.” Hux nods briskly, as if they're in the conference room and not standing dishevelled in his room. He glances at the mirror, briefly, but obviously doesn't want to linger on his smudged state. He looks at Ren instead, his usual snobbish defiance creeping into his expression. “I'm sure you have preparations to make, but if you have the time to join me...”

Ren doesn't need to be asked twice. He shucks off the rest of his gold-stained clothes and steps into the shower stall. _Now that I'm here_ , he thinks, as Hux squeezes in beside him, _you're never going get rid of me._ He doesn't speak the words aloud, but a reluctant smile moves onto Hux's face, and Ren knows he doesn't need to say anything.


End file.
